Guest post by Beth Pratt

With the price of gas rising infinitely, more and more companies are beginning to realize that they can get as much or more work from employees who work from their own homes. This new trend also seems to be encouraging parents to bring the kids home by way of home schooling. With the whole family together, at-home-workers are finding creative ways to make the arrangement work for the benefit of the entire family.

While there are some disadvantages to working from home, there are many more reasons to embrace the work-at-home life.

1. Flexibility: There are no 9-5 schedules here. You can work ten hours one day, two hours the next, take the next day off or work for twelve hours straight. You can choose to focus on calling people, e-mailing, networking or researching on any given day, without asking for “permission” from a higher-up. While some companies do expect you to work between certain hours, this is the exception; most are quite willing to allow you to choose your own hours, even your level of commitment.
2. Cost Efficiency: You don’t have to buy gas to go to and from work, you don’t have to buy snacks or pack a lunch or worry about the cost of eating fast food at lunch. You can forego buying work clothes, since you are free to work in pajamas if desired, and the cost of laundry is dramatically reduced because you don’t have to wear three suits of clothes in one day. You don’t have to hire a babysitter to watch the kids all the time, and can even pick up babysitting yourself to make some extra money. Finally, instead of battling traffic two or three times a day to get to work, drive your kids to soccer practice, pick up ingredients for dinner and drop off dry cleaning, you can incorporate everything into one painless trip.
3. Health Benefits: You don’t have to go to work sick anymore. You can take a day off if you’re not feeling well, or work around low energy days. This can cut down on trips to the doctor, since you’re not thwarting the work of your immune system by forcing yourself to work sick.  In addition, you can regulate the amount of sleep you get. No more getting up at a certain time each day regardless of how much sleep you got the night before. After those long nights of tossing and turning, you can sleep in or take it easier.
4. Family/Emotional Health: There is no doubt of the importance of family time. Working from home allows parents to spend more time with their kids, to attend meetings and practices, and catch up with them on a daily basis. And kids seem to behave and learn better when around the consistent eye of supportive parents. Staying at home can also help kids and parents face emotional issues head on, avoiding the build-up of resentment and loneliness. Marriages also run more smoothly when couples aren’t rushed apart every morning and rushed into the night-time routine when they get home from a traditional job.
5. Freedom to Choose: Most people don’t get to choose where they spend the rest of their lives working. Some college graduates actually end up in field that they have a passion for, but these are the lucky folks. Many more end up burnt out in the long run, either from working with people they can’t relate to or working a job that wasn’t all they thought it would be. Working from home is an individual venture, and unless you have employees, you can easily change the scope of your business anytime, even if that puts you into a different field altogether.

It can be hard to imagine that there are disadvantages to working from home, but as with everything else, working at home carries with it some negatives. These include instability, lack of structure, increased distractions and unpredictability. These can be fatal flaws to work-at-homers, but as with anything worthwhile, they don’t have to be. With courage and perseverance, working at home is no more a risk than keeping a job that costs you most of your paycheck on secondary necessities such as gas, childcare, fast food and clothing.

About our guest author: Beth Pratt is a work at home mom and editor for Its a WAHM Thing, a blog covering all aspects of balancing your home-based career and raising a family. Beth is the proud mother of two boisterous boys ages 5 and 2.